How to run a program automatically as admin on Windows 7 at startup?

You need to plug it into the task scheduler, such that it is launched after login of a user, using a user account that has administrative access on the system, with the highest privileges that are afforded to processes launched by that account.

This is the implementation that is used to autostart processes with administrative privileges when logging in as an ordinary user.

I've used it to launch the 'OpenVPN GUI' helper process which needs elevated privileges to work correctly, and thus would not launch properly from the registry key.

From the command line, you can create the task from an XML description of what you want to accomplish; so for example we have this, exported from my system, which would start notepad with the highest privileges when i log in:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Date>2015-01-27T18:30:34</Date>
    <Author>Pete</Author>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <LogonTrigger>
      <StartBoundary>2015-01-27T18:30:00</StartBoundary>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    </LogonTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Principals>
    <Principal id="Author">
      <UserId>CHUMBAWUMBA\Pete</UserId>
      <LogonType>InteractiveToken</LogonType>
      <RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
    </Principal>
  </Principals>
  <Settings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>false</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>false</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <IdleSettings>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>false</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>PT0S</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>"c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe"</Command>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

and it's registered by an administrator command prompt using:

schtasks /create /tn "start notepad on login" /xml startnotepad.xml

this answer should really be moved over to one of the other stackexchange sites, as it's not actually a programming question per se.

schtasks /create /sc onlogon /tn MyProgram /rl highest /tr "exeFullPath"

This is not possible.
However, you can create a service that runs under an administrative user.

The service can run automatically at startup and communicate with your existing application.
When the application needs to do something as an administrator, it can ask the service to do it for it.

Remember that multiple users can be logged on at once.

I think that using the task scheduler to autostart programs is not very user friendly, and sometimes it has had side effects for me (e.g. tray icon for a program is not added).

To remedy this, I have made a program called Elevated Startup that first relaunches itself with administrator privileges, then it launches all files in a directory. Since Elevated Startup is now elevated, all the programs it then launches is also given administrator privileges. The directory is on the start menu next to the classic Startup directory, and works very much the same.

You may encounter one UAC dialog when the program relaunches itself, depending on your UAC settings.

You can get the program here: https://stefansundin.github.io/elevatedstartup/